6m WSPR

Just decided to do a little 6m WSPR beaconing this afternoon and evening. So far no reports of my signal, but I'm copying EA4BMG quite well. There are many more signals weakly visible on the WSPR screen but these have Doppler shift which must confuse the software decoder as only EA4BMG has been repeatedly decoded.

Concorde to fly again?

There are moves afoot to get Concorde, the supersonic jet, flying again on memorial flights and it is possible it may yet fly over London at the 2012 Olympic Games opening. The only time I've been on Concorde was at Duxford Airport in Cambridgeshire in a static display. My wife's brother used to work for BT and fly to the USA and back in a day using Concorde so he could hold meetings in New York on a day trip - how times change!

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8712806.stm

The latest VLF receiver

Here is a picture of the latest version of my VLF 1-2kHz receiver for use with my 80cm loop. The version before this (Wednesday) had one less Sallen-Key active high pass filter and was able to copy my 4W grounded electrode transmissions "by ear" at 0.5kms. This latest version now has 2 sections of 50Hz active high pass filtering so should offer better S/N at the limit of range. The audio above 2kHz is attenuated by the passive LPF.

RockMite 20 QRP build video (N2JMB)

Just came across this video showing the build of a Small Wonder Labs Rock Mite 20 QRP transceiver.

Portable crystal set DXing (in 1922)

Wonderful silent movie from 1922. See http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=2616st5

Building a wax cylinder player

A band called The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing is putting one track of their next album on a wax cylinder available from 1 June. Don't ask me why! This is about an attempt to make a wax cylinder player to play the new record when it becomes available, the first commercially produced cylinder in 100 years.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10171206.stm

0.5km on earth-mode with 4W

This evening I achieved my best results so far with 1kHz earth mode TXing on a 20m base electrode pair and receiving on an 80cm loop and listening by ear. Even this range I think can be bettered with yet more 50Hz rejection. With a PC at the receiving end I think 1km is certainly possible now.

Computer mouse problem

You must read this http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wgtaylor/FM.pdf . It is a true account of a PC problem that really did turn out to be a mouse problem ....a real mouse inside the PC that is.

Resonating the VLF receiver loop

Today I've been resonating my receiving loop to see if this improved things. Well, I tried it - no better. Then I improved the active high pass (50Hz) filter which got the mains hum down some more, removed an audio gain stage in the RX just leaving 2 common emitter stages. With this, 4W TX, and the loop resonated around 2kHz I did a further walk-about test. 0.42kms was the limit of range. S/N better and 50Hz hum not a problem even close to cables. The RX needs some more gain and narrower selectivity.

More earth mode experiments at 1kHz

This evening I extended my TX electrode spacings by connecting one end to the copper pipes in the house, almost doubling the effective TX baseline to about 20m. With this, my "earth mode" signals were much stronger and I was able to cover further than before in a "by ear" walk-about test around the fields locally.  Ultimate range tonight was 0.4kms using 4W (probably less as the TDA2003 was hot and probably turning down the power) and receiving on an 80cm 30t loop, active HPF, small AF amp and crystal earpiece.  Range was limited by 50Hz mains hum and background sferic noise. I must retry this set-up with my HF up-converter and FT817 this week, which has good rejection of 50Hz (and its harmonics) as well as a narrow CW filter.